1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of biometric computer security and more particularly to presence sensing computer security.
2. Description of the Related Art
Biometric technology relates to the automated identification or authentication of the identity of a living person based upon physical or behavioral characteristics. Unique physical traits include fingerprints, iris imagery, voice prints, facial features, signatures and hand geometry. As such, in the biometric sciences, each can be used to authenticate or identify a person. To utilize biometric data in a security application, first an authorized individual can be enrolled—namely respective biometric data can be acquired and stored. Subsequently, when a need for authorization or validation arises, contemporaneous biometric data can be collected and compared to the stored biometric data to determine if a match has occurred. If so, access can be granted. Otherwise, access can be denied.
While biometric technology likely will play a leading role in computing security in the future, significant limitations exist in respect to biometric technology. First, once a user has been authorized and validated based upon matching biometric data, the user can freely access the resources of a computing device. No additional validation or authentication will be required, unless of course, the user disconnects or otherwise “logs out” of the computing device, necessitating a new log on procedure. Many instances can arise, however, where it would be desirable to elevate a secure posture of a computing device, even once a user has been authenticated and validated.
For example, while the privacy of files can be presumed when a computing user interacts with a computing device alone, in many cases, other persons can be within visual range of important data leading to a less than secure environment. Moreover, oftentimes computing users can temporarily leave the vicinity of a computing device once validated such as to use the restroom or to talk to another person elsewhere. In that circumstance, file access can be had by anyone choosing to interact with the exposed computing platform.
To address the latter problem, “presence” detection has been proposed in which the computing platform can detect the presence of an authorized user responsive to which the computing platform can permit unfettered interactions with the computing platform. When the computing platform detects a loss of presence of the authorized user, the computing platform can become “locked” and a screen saver application can obscure from view any information displayed through the computing platform. In this way, end users can remain free to leave the vicinity of a workstation without fear of a breach of security.
Nevertheless, in many occasions it can be desirable to implement selective security while remaining in the presence of a computing platform. For instance, a computing user can engage in a chat session which contents may be confidential. When others enter the vicinity of the computing platform, the confidentiality of the chat session can become compromised. Similarly, others may be granted access to non-confidential materials in the computing platform temporarily. While generally access is to be permitted, the access can have the undesirable consequence of also providing access to confidential materials.